Friday, January 30, 2009

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

My thoughts exactly...

Snipped from the Star
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Wednesday January 28, 2009

Short-term talent management crucial for firms’ survival

By LAALITHA HUNT

PETALING JAYA: Many companies in Malaysia are redeploying staff to different roles in their efforts to manage talent in a slower economy.

With the current situation, human resource (HR) managers are required to review and reassign employees to locations and business lines where there is the greatest need.

Organisations are also more flexible in expanding responsibilities and adding new roles to existing employees.

Talent2 International Ltd director for South Asia Leigh Howard said successful organisations would retain good staff through the tough times to ensure they could scale up their businesses when the market turned.

“There’s no doubt that successful talent management in the short term would be essential for long-term business survival,” he told StarBiz in an email.

He added that HR managers played an important role as they were at the centre of the decision-making process, providing businesses with critical information and paths of action to deal with the impending downturn.

Retrenchment is the last resort as this exercise is never easy and need to be managed properly to avoid costly mistakes,” Howard said.

According to Hewitt Associates senior consultant Taranjeet Singh, besides strategic hiring, companies may choose to scale down salary increments.

“Salary increment ranges may be reduced from about 8% to 4%, going forward,” he said.
Watson Wyatt (M) Sdn Bhd said a slowdown was not going to reverse the long-term imbalance in the supply and demand for talented employees.

Its country manager Vivek Nath said: “Skilled employees will continue to have many career options and employers cannot afford to relax their focus on retaining key staff.”

He said in current times, organisations’ priorities should include retaining high-potential employees via competitive compensation and benefit structure.

It is also important to engage and motivate existing high-performing employees to buy their long-term loyalty,” he said.

Besides special recognition programmes, employees should also be offered training opportunities to upgrade their skills, Vivek said.

Taranjeet said the more progressive organisations would choose to re-assess employees’ capabilities as well as skills requirement and provide training opportunities as means of sustainable development during economic uncertainty.

One of the ways was through the Human Resource Development Fund, where employers would provide financial assistance to staff to pursue masters or doctoral degrees.

Howard concurred that employees who might be affected must be prepared to be flexible and pick up new skills to ensure that they remain employable.

He added that there were vast opportunities in Malaysia to pursue further education as there were over 200 educational institutions.

Employees must also be prepared to work in a different industry from what they are used to in case of layoffs, according to another consultant.

“This is where retraining is important, so that the retrenched workers can be equipped to take on new jobs,” the consultant said.

On funding for retraining purposes, Perbadanan Sumber Manusia Bhd has allocated RM5mil in the last Budget.

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sensei says "The best of us can find happiness in misery".. it's always best that we know what we are good at and what do we need to improve on...

Monday, January 19, 2009

Setiap lagu ada nyawanya..

A wise sensei once said, "Kalau nak buat lagu, buatlah lagu yang mudah dinyanyikan".. that sensei was Allahyarham Tan Sri P. Ramlee..

Last night when Meet Uncle Hussain won AJL23, I heard another good quote which goes something like this.. "Every song has it's soul and it's fate lies in the amount of heart we put in it".. I always believed that in any job, the key lies in how much one loves doing it.. if one is passionate about what he/she does, the reward will come.. and usually the sweetest one are those that come unexpectedly.. "Lagu Untukmu" actually took more than 2 years to see daylight, and now almost everyone knows the tune..

This is my own take on the song.. a shortened acoustic version.. ;)

Sunday, January 11, 2009

For the one that's far away..

I love this song.. that's why I decided to do my own solo version..
you can catch the one I did with my BlindSight buddies here.



A wise sensei once said "Sometimes why you don't get what you want is because it is better for you to not have it.."

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Like father like daughter...?

I have nothing to say... any comments? :)

Friday, January 02, 2009

Fairy under the wind..

I think this song might just bag AJL next year...



If only I had gotten the lyrics 100% correct.. :P

Thursday, January 01, 2009

2009: What's the game plan?

Kate Beckinsale said, "One of the things I've done wrong with my career is not have a massive game plan for it. I was very surprised to ever find myself even considered for an action movie. I'm like the literary, academic geek who's not very good at sports, so it was amazingly shocking that anyone would ever do that."

I guess even successful people don't realize their true potential sometimes.. but still, like she said, if she had a clear plan for her career, she might have have been a bigger star by now..

So, what's our game plan for 2009? ;)